System Restore
by caffeine.bloodstream
Summary: MacPC. He's seen PC sick before, but it's never been this bad. Done as a request for the lj comm. Light techslash none yet, but probably to come. Don't mind the incorrect dates in the latest chapters I forgot to change them.
1. Chapter 1

System Restore

By caffeine.bloodstream

3.29.2007

Disclaimer: The only Mac I own is the one on my desk. Also, this is going to make very little sense if you haven't seen the commercials. Apple dot com slash getamac slash ads.

* * *

1

It was an utterly typical evening, quiet and unremarkable, when the whole mess started. The bulk of the day was behind them, with little left to do but kill time till it was time to turn in for the night. Both of them had ended up on the couch; initially, PC had tried to work at Mac's desk (he'd always felt that Excel was a fundamentally desk-y program), but the setup was too unfamiliar, too casually disorganized, and he'd eventually given up on it to join Mac instead.

Now, _his_ tasks, those were couch-y ones. Occasionally, PC would find himself distracted by Mac's half-stifled laughter (Youtube, he was guessing; at least he was considerate enough to use his headphones when PC was trying to work) or by the glitter of some iSomething doing…whatever it did. They were connected, if only in a casual background sort of way, sharing Mac's wireless. With both of them consigned to their own personal spheres of interest, there wasn't any real reason for the network, but the days of needing a reason had passed some time ago. By then, it just felt comfortable, and came as second nature whenever PC was over.

Normally, Mac could exert some remarkable self-control when PC seemed very busy and just let him be. But he'd been doing so for close to an hour by that point, and even with the IM chatter, he craved a little real interaction. (He'd tried to snuggle up to PC once before, when they were both working just like that, but it'd ended in PC running a little too warm to focus and asking Mac ruefully to give him more space, at least until he'd finished his spreadsheet.) Besides, PC had an odd, unexpected fondness for those image macros with the cats, and Mac had stumbled upon a good one a while earlier and minimized it to show him later. For as long as he'd been sitting still, this was 'later' enough by his standards.

"Hey, PC," he spoke up, slipping his headphones off to rest around his neck. When PC didn't respond right away, he didn't think much of it; how anyone could get engrossed in anything from the Office suite was beyond him, but it _was_ PC. When that moment stretched just a little too long to be chalked up to preoccupation, or even general lag, Mac blinked and tried again, this time with a light tap on the shoulder as punctuation.

"PC?"

That seemed to do it, more or less, because PC blinked as well and shook his head quickly, trying to clear it. Had Mac been talking to him? Somehow he hadn't even realized. And when, he wondered with an absent glance to his clock, had it gotten so late? It didn't seem right – but he was still too young for 'senior moments', and entertained only a moment's worry before looking over. Mac relaxed visibly when he did (for a second there, he'd thought PC was frozen, something they hadn't had to deal with in a good while) and scooted closer, bringing Preview to the forefront to show off the picture he'd found.

"Made me think of you," he explained with a smile, hoping PC wouldn't get fussy about being briefly distracted from his work for something like this. Mac just couldn't keep to himself for so long in one sitting; it made him an ace at networking, but at the cost of occasionally overstepping a boundary or two. As it were, PC was probably in need of a little break anyways, and leaned over to see what Mac had. Or started to lean over, anyway. About halfway there he paused, blinked, and turned away to cough into his hand, shoulders hunching.

Mac was instantly concerned, and not without reason. PC got sick way too easily (even the Vista upgrade hadn't remedied that, after he'd finally disabled the overbearing Guardian out of sheer frustration) and while sometimes it was just a fleeting bug or minor glitch, he'd been there for a few cases that weren't. For someone who'd grown up without ever really seeing what a virus could do – his whole family shared his general immunity to most of them – it'd been downright scary the first time PC locked up. And from what he'd heard, he hadn't even witnessed the worst of it; those had happened before they really knew each other, a few versions back, when PC's defenses were even less developed and hacking was the trendy thing to do. As far as those viruses went, he'd only heard stories, but he still flinched whenever PC showed any signs of trouble.

"Hey---whoa, hey, PC? You okay?" he asked, setting a hand on the other's back as he struggled to catch a breath. Mac wasn't the only one who got freaked out when this happened, but PC was a little more used to it, and tended to react more with resignation than with panic. It took another minute of coughing, but finally he managed a nod, clearing his throat, gesturing breathlessly that he was okay. He wasn't entirely sure about that, though. That had felt like the onset of…something, and with how he'd been lagging sporadically all night (he'd mostly been able to hide it), he had a few reasons to be worried. But Mac worried more than he did. No sense making that worse.

"Fine," he answered hoarsely, blinking a few times in the groggy aftermath that had left him with. "I'm fine, just…mmf." Initially, he'd intended for the 'mmf' to come out as 'just dust in the fans', but he suddenly felt too weary to finish the sentence, slouching in his seat. Mac, while still not well-versed in everything that went on with PC – not by a long shot – recognized that weariness. Something was burning up PC's RAM faster than he could deal with, and he swallowed back a wave of nervousness, leaning over to press the back of his hand to PC's forehead.

"You're running hot," he noted with a frown. PC tried to say something, to point out that he was always warm in comparison to Mac, but again he found himself too tired to speak up. No – not tired, exactly. But like his processors were slow, sluggish. It was frustrating, and he closed his eyes, trying to sort things out. He was distantly aware, as he did, of Mac working off his tie, unbuttoning his shirt, saying something all the while about trying to cool him down. He nodded, because that seemed like the right response, and because Mac seemed to have a point – he felt decidedly unwell. Even with high-strain apps running, he shouldn't have been so warm, and he knew it.

"I think I'm coming down with something," he mumbled in a moment of lucidity, opening his eyes again. Judging from the worry on Mac's face, he'd come to the same conclusion, and hopped off the couch so he could ease PC to lay down.

"Just take it easy – okay, buddy? Stay with me," he added, watching PC's eyelids droop again, his display wavering in a very troubling fashion.

"Trying," came the groggy reply. He _wanted_ to stay with Mac, he thought dazedly. He really did. But he was so weary, and staying focused was such a strain…

"I'm just…going to rest for a while," he managed, words slurring together, eyes refusing to stay open. "Don't…worry."

He thought he saw blue – but was it Mac's-shirt-blue, or error-screen-blue? – and then it all faded to black.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

System Restore

By caffeine.bloodstream

3.29.2007

Back by popular demand! (Okay, one comment isn't "popular demand", but back anyway.)

Disclaimer: The only Mac I own is the one on my desk. Also, this is going to make very little sense if you haven't seen the commercials. Apple dot com slash getamac slash ads.

* * *

2

"PC?...Come on, big guy, wake up…"

The familiar voice was the first thing he was aware of. The second, which came to his attention very quickly, was that his CPU was _killing_ him. It hadn't hurt like that since the Limewire incident (which he'd come to see as karmic retribution for running such a legally questionable application) and he groaned quietly, reluctant to open his eyes. At that groan, Mac paused, but only in his outward fretting. It hadn't done much to assuage his underlying worries, and he picked up the damp washcloth he'd set on the coffee table, gently dabbing at PC's brow and soft, flushed cheeks. That touch earned a distinctly less unhappy sound, a faintly relieved murmur, and finally PC coaxed his eyes open. The room had gotten dark, and he was fairly glad for that; this felt like the sort of headache that wouldn't take well to light.

"Thank you," he murmured, finding then that his throat was still hoarse, his voice more befitting someone with much cheaper speakers than his. "Did I crash?"

"I think so," answered Mac, devotedly tending to him for another minute before putting the cloth back down. It seemed to have helped a little, though PC was still a worrisome shade of pink and still way warmer than he should have been. "Looks like you caught something."

"I know," PC replied, sounding utterly miserable. Largely because he was. It wasn't just his CPU – _everything_ felt all achy, and if he tried too hard to focus on anything, it made him whirr and lock and feel like he was on the verge of going down again. Naturally, he didn't make a second attempt at that, closing his eyes with a frown. Mac frowned too, and brought his hand back to PC's cheek; this time without the cloth, thumb stroking gently over his skin. That registered vaguely as a nice sensation, but PC couldn't quite clear his mind enough to say so. He'd made the mistake just then of trying to open Task Manager and see what was doing all this, what insidious .exe was messing around in the background, and even that simple check had nearly knocked him out.

"I'm so tired," he sighed instead. 'Tired' wasn't even the right word, but he wasn't sure he had one for this kind of exhaustion. He managed to catch a glimpse of his clock, and realized dazedly that he'd been out for a solid few hours – it was the middle of the night already – but the rest hadn't apparently done him any good.

"I can tell, buddy. Hang in there, okay?" A good portion of those hours had been spent trying to wake PC up (and panicking when each attempt failed, even the desperate one involving a few quick Ctrl-Alt-Dels); the remainder had been spent online, Googling his symptoms and skimming a few technophile message boards for any mention of a new bug going around. He'd come up without specifics, but with far too many scary stories about forced reboots and comprehensive system reinstalls, and none of that had done anything to ease his worries. Even then, PC looked like he might slide back under at any moment, and Mac's mind raced, trying to find some way to keep him aware without putting too heavy a strain on his already-strained processors. He hardly seemed up to talking (and he certainly didn't feel it) but nothing had been quite as unnerving to Mac as the long stretch of utter silence, without even the comforting whirr of PC's CPU to reassure him that he was okay.

"Has this ever happened before?" he asked; when PC's brows furrowed, he hastily interjected. "I mean – you don't have to go hunting through your event log or anything, just…any time that you can remember off hand?" Apparently he'd been right about what PC was struggling with, because at that clarification, his features relaxed just enough to show he'd dropped a process or two. It wasn't much, but it was enough to think clearly, trying to pinpoint the last time he'd been this bad.

"Once…or twice," he finally replied, eyes closed once more, every word sounding like he'd had to fight to get it out. And he had; responding at all was almost more than he could make himself do, but he could hear the uncertainty in Mac's voice. It seemed very out of place; Mac was always the cool one, always on top of it. Except when this happened, PC amended mentally. That was the only time he ever saw Mac lose his nerve (oh, and that time when the big battery recall had gone down) and while he was usually too sick by that point to worry much about Mac, he always noticed it. Sometimes he worried too much, which wasn't something PC had ever expected him to do; not just because of the perpetual calm, but because worrying and taking care of someone were very responsible actions. Mature, even. Whenever Mac got like this, PC would wonder if maybe he hadn't been giving him enough credit all this time – he'd usually go back to his usual stance on that issue as soon as he was well again, but for a while, Mac really seemed like someone different.

Right then, he was in no state to think about any of that. It was exhausting enough to carry on a conversation; there'd be no attempting deep thoughts any time soon.

"What happened? I mean---how'd you fix it?" Again he had to think back; Mac saw the strain on his face, but he couldn't let this question go unanswered. He knew only the most basic of fixes for PC – first aid, so to speak. He knew how to get him new drivers, or update his security, or help him install a patch. Anything beyond that fell under the mysterious jurisdiction of those who did that kind of thing for a living.

"Went in," PC mumbled; Mac filled in the blanks easily enough. "I…don't really remember what they did." That bothered him – why couldn't he remember his own maintenance history? Normally he'd know that kind of thing without even having to think about it, but it wasn't coming to him and he frowned, racking his mind.

Unfortunately, his mind really wasn't up to being racked right then, and he had to give up on the question when his fans hummed threateningly, warning of an overheat. Immediately Mac was close again, the washcloth cool against his skin.

"Easy, easy…that's okay. I don't need the details." He was reluctant – he was always reluctant – about handing PC over to the care of professionals. It wasn't that he didn't trust them; he had no reason to doubt their knowledge. They definitely had more of it than him. It was just nerve-wracking to place PC's care in anyone else's hands, no matter how qualified those hands were. And it meant things had gotten worse than Mac knew how to fix, which struck a little at his pride but moreover made him feel nervous. Unsuited for this. Mac was high maintenance in the more proverbial sense of it; he liked attention. PC, however, was actually high-_maintenance_, and Mac was learning over time how difficult a life that could be.

But he knew his limits. And PC's prolonged crash earlier had, frankly, scared him. A lot. This was a job for people who knew PC even better than he did, no matter how much he hated to admit it.

"PC, remind me again…what are your guys called? Um…The ones that are like Geniuses, but for PCs?"

"Geeks." PC felt like he was about to pass out. "I…mn…I don't have…number…with me…"

"It's okay," Mac assured him. "I'll look it up. Hey---PC? PC, you still with me?"

PC's eyes were firmly closed, and for a frightening moment Mac thought he'd slipped away again. But his expression was still strained, not blank as it had been before, and he could hear the near-exhausted thrum of his processors. He hadn't shut down, just gone into some kind of idled state, probably out of self-preservation. Still, he looked like it hurt, and Mac frowned as he set the damp cloth aside and gently brushed the other's hair from where it'd matted against his skin.

"Hang in there."

He kissed PC's forehead, pulled back, and loaded up the phonebook.


	3. Chapter 3

System Restore

By caffeine.bloodstream

3.29.2007

Disclaimer: The only Mac I own is the one on my desk. Also, this is going to make very little sense if you haven't seen the commercials. Apple dot com slash getamac slash ads. 

* * *

3 

The ad in the phone book had promised "24 hour service", but he'd still been a little impressed (and more than a little relieved) when one of the 'geeks' actually made a house call at close to two in the morning. Then again, maybe it made sense that PC's guys were ready to jump in and save the day. Judging by the overall demeanor of the guy who showed up, this wasn't the first time someone had called them in the middle of the night, freaking out about a PC doing things it shouldn't.

When he arrived, PC was still in his eerie comatose state, not peaceful enough to be asleep but not conscious enough to be running. Mac wasn't sure whether the lack of change was a good sign or a bad one, but either way he was going to wear out the floor if he kept pacing the way he had been. It was more than a little jarring when, after a few unoptimistic keystrokes, the technician had sighed deeply, reached back, and simply pulled out PC's power cord. _Way_ more than a little jarring, when PC in turn sighed and went deathly silent, features going blank. It was one of their most fundamental differences – PC was a desktop, Mac a laptop. Which meant the closest he'd ever come to what he'd just witnessed really wasn't close at all. He'd never been "hard rebooted", as the glasses-sporting Geek (he actually looked like what PC might have conceivably looked like with maybe twenty less years under his belt, Mac had noted absently) phrased it. Once or twice he'd been left unplugged, but that just meant drifting slowly off to sleep to wake at some uncertain later point, exhausted and without any memory of the time that elapsed. He'd never just…just gone _off_ like that, in the frightening absolute way PC just had.

"What's going on?" he asked, raking a hand through his hair, trying to get a grip. Laid-back was usually his thing, but he just wasn't going to manage it tonight, and the thoughtful frown on the Geek's face did little to comfort him.

"Virus, if I had to guess. Something messing with his boot menu. Have you downloaded anything suspicious lately?"

"I really doubt it," Mac answered, after a moment's thought. His own hard drive would probably get him on the bad side of quite a few copyright owners, and possibly the RIAA (but who _wasn't_ on their bad side, honestly?) but PC tended to avoid legal gray areas. Hell, he read the end-user license agreements. _Nobody _did that. If he'd gotten something, it'd probably just snuck in and taken advantage of him, as some unsavory popup or innocent-looking toolbar. Mac made a mental note to ask him about that later, and to remind him for the nth time that mucking up his browser could only end in pain. But that was for later. Now was no time to be planning out his security lectures.

"So, um…" he started, and the Geek – Brian, according to his nametag – looked up. "What now? I mean---how do you fix this? Do you have to install something?" From what he'd seen, that was the usual treatment for these. Someone (Mac himself, in a few recent cases) would provide a disc with the necessary patch or antidote, then go through any of a number of bizarre processes to make it take effect, and that'd be it. But even the worst of those cases hadn't been as severe as this was starting to seem. To him, the idea of an aftermarket hardware upgrade or reinstallation was more than a little foreign. For PC, he learned, they were almost a fact of life.

"Welllll," sighed Brian, eyeing PC thoughtfully, even giving him a spontaneous little nudge as if he thought that might wake him up. It didn't. "Probably easier to deal with in-house. We'll take a look there, see what's causing the trouble…" In-house, Mac deduced, meant PC'd be staying over for the repairs; at that point, the surrender to well-trained people was less intimidating and getting closer to a comfort. That comfort wasn't to last, though; Brian chewed his lip briefly, then glanced up to Mac.

"Thing is, if we can't even get a boot screen, it's not gonna matter –what- kind of virus it was. I mean, it'll sort of matter, if it was one that damaged anything internally, but…I don't see any signs of that. You haven't noticed any smoke or anything coming out of the vents, right?"

"No," he answered quickly. Smoke? He'd been on the verge of panic when PC shut down without warning. If he'd started smoking, Mac probably would have blown a circuit.

"Okay. Then…for a big virus like this, the usual thing to do would be a system restore."

Mac had only a vague idea of what that entailed. As a general rule, vaguery scared him more than exact details. It was one of the few things he and PC had in common – they both wanted to know specifically what was going on, whenever something notable was.

"System restore?" he echoed, wondering if all who called the Geeks looked as clueless as he probably did right then.

"Yeah. What OS are you running?"

"Ten," he answered. The technician stared at him flatly for a moment before he realized what the question actually was. "Oh---him. Uh…Vista. Just installed. Business edition, I think. Is there a Business edition?" If there was one, he thought, it'd be the one PC had.

"Yeah. Okay, well…for a system restore, we'll basically wipe all the memory and reinstall from that OS. It's a total clean slate. There's an extra charge to back up your files, although…this far gone, it's hard to say if we'll be able to get much off the drive." Mac was starting to think that maybe vague actually had been better. He didn't like the sound of this at all. "If you want, we'll recover as much as we can, but there's definitely gonna be some data loss. On the upside…you'll probably get better performance without whatever extra junk might have piled up in the background."

(Briefly, Mac was tempted to defend PC's "extra junk". It gave him…character. He resisted.)

"So…If we end up doing a system restore, do you want the data backup, assuming we can get any?"

Every single part of that sentence was frightening. PC was sicker than Mac could fix. They were painfully close to something even Mac knew was an absolute last resort, one that might leave PC with nothing – no memories, no programs, nothing but the barest and basest parts of himself.

"Yeah," he answered dully, after a quiet moment. What else could he say? They were going to do their best. Maybe PC'd be fine. Or maybe he wouldn't. Either way, it was entirely out of Mac's hands, and he swallowed hard and fought back a lurch in his processors as the technician coaxed PC onto the wheeled hand-truck he'd brought in with him.

"Uh…at this hour, the shop's closed, so we can't get started right away, but we're not too backed up and this isn't too heavy of an overhaul. Probably have it done same-day. Lemme just have you fill out this – here and here-" he indicated, passing some pre-fabbed, clipboarded sheet over to Mac. "-and we'll give you a call when we're all done." He felt weird, disconnected as he input name and IP and all those other necessary bits. He knew this sort of thing happened to PCs. People on his side of things gossiped like one big Apple sewing circle sometimes, and as was the nature of gossip, they never spared a negative about the Other Guy. Even when the Other Guy was Mac's Guy. So he knew. That wasn't making it easier, the way it seemed like it should have.

"Thanks," said the Geek as he passed back the mostly-completed form (it'd asked for all these personal details about PC, which made sense but had proved to be a little disheartening at points – Mac felt a distinct guilt at not knowing his actual processor speed, having always just categorized it as "prone to lags, but in kind of a cute way".) "We'll call you. Thanks for using Geek Squad."

Mac showed him out, dropped onto the couch, and didn't sleep that night. 

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

System Restore

By caffeine.bloodstream

3.29.2007

Disclaimer: The only Mac I own is the one on my desk. Also, this is going to make very little sense if you haven't seen the commercials. Apple dot com slash getamac slash ads. 

* * *

4

Dreams were strange things. Nobody could quite explain what caused the weird processing glitches that happened sometimes while a computer slept – some said it was the processor's way of finishing up tasks left undone during the day. Others thought it had something to do with leaving too many documents open, and dreams were the unit's way of protecting them from corruption. Whatever the cause, Mac's were restless and unsettling. PC was there, but out of reach; every time Mac tried to grab his hand, he slipped back, and every time he tried to create a network, he was disconnected before he could begin.

He was jolted from the nightmare, mercifully, by the chime of Skype's ringer going off. There was an orange glow drifting warmly through the windows that told of the beginning of sunset – strange, because he couldn't even remember falling asleep. But even Mac couldn't just run indefinitely, and the strain had finally knocked him out some time in the early hours of the morning.

When he saw the caller ID, his initial grogginess immediately cleared, and he picked it up before it could ring again.

It was Brian, the Geek, and his PC was all set and ready to be picked up.

There were questions to ask. Whether it had gone well – how much data had been saved – what happened now. But those were for after he got to the store. Right then, they'd just slow him down, and he had to go. PC was okay, or he wasn't, or maybe he was somewhere in between; whatever the case, Mac needed to be there. He was out the door the moment he'd hung up.

-

It was unfair, and he knew it, to resent the handful of people in line at the counter. They had things to deal with too. But a small, vindictive part of him felt that it wouldn't be so bad if the earth quietly swallowed them up or something, and when he caught that train of thought, he took a deep breath and resolved to relax. Or, if not that, to at least keep his anxiety to a background hum till it was his turn.

Finally, he was up, and faced with a Geek who wasn't Brian and who asked for name, job number, and a handful of other confirmations as to who he was and what he was there for. (In his insomnia, Mac had committed all the finer details to permanent memory. He'd even gone back through all his connection logs, and found out those pieces he hadn't been aware of – but he still preferred his description of PC's processing speed to the one in the stats. It _was_ cute, something the numbers just didn't capture.)

The desk Geek checked his information against a sheet, nodded, and informed him that his PC was in the back, and they'd bring him right out.

'His PC.' Mac swallowed hard, and wondered how much of _his_ PC would be left after this.

He'd honestly been expecting more of an initial shock, but when they brought PC out, he looked just as he had the day before. Almost. His tie wasn't as neat as usual – had they gone as far as removing his casing? The thought freaked Mac out – but otherwise, there was nothing to show for the ordeal. Not at first glance, at least.

Desk-Geek handed over a DVD-R in an envelope, with the explanation that this was all the data they'd been able to get off PC's hard drive. He tried not to think too much about the storage capacity of that DVD, and subsequently how little of the PC he knew had been salvaged. Maybe, he tried to reassure himself, the OS itself would fill in a lot of those gaps. Why not, right? It seemed possible. Mac had never fully understood PC's inner workings, and most likely never would, so…there was room for some hope. If he was wrong, it'd be that much harder, but he just had to hope he wasn't.

The cost the Geeks were asking for their services seemed like a stretch, but they had insurance. Mac gave that, and then his thanks, and was in turn helped out to the car; Mac found PC uniquely handsome, for the weight he carried, but he was still not an easy guy to cart around unconscious.

It was a small miracle that Mac didn't cause any accidents on the way home, because his eyes spent way less time on the road than they did on PC, resting there in the front seat, eyes closed and lips parted. He could have been asleep, if not for the slightly eerie lack of his usual whirring and humming. But he got them both home without event, and managed to get PC inside with a little careful leaning and supporting along the way. The couch was closest, so it was where they ended up, Mac's arm still around PC's waist as they both flopped to sit down. He hadn't noticed it before, perhaps because he didn't generally have to tote PC around like that, but now that they sat in such a familiar position, Mac was suddenly aware that PC'd gotten just a little smaller. He'd noticed that when Vista first came along, too, when all the old things were cleaned out to make room for the new, and briefly his mind flickered back to the mention of PC's "extra junk". Apparently he'd really lost a good deal of that. But for whatever unfriendly terms the first Geek had dubbed it with, that stuff was still part of PC. His PC. It was unnerving to realize that part of him was now simply and inalterably gone.

He couldn't dwell on that. Not yet. Not until he knew just how far-reaching this had gone. With a shift, he reached back to pull the DVD envelope from his back pocket, sliding out the disc and staring at it. It had his job number written there, in unceremonious Sharpie handwriting, just beside that disquieting "4.7G" label.

4.7G. Four point seven gigs. It wasn't much. Desk Geek had explained, as they took PC out to the car, that he was basically ready to run – Vista had been reinstalled and set up, and the disc didn't hold any essential operating files. Just the less permanent data that had survived the virus attack. It had bewildered Mac somewhat that even then, no one seemed to know exactly what had caused all this. He got the feeling no one –could- know. It could have been any of a hundred---what was it? 114,000?---any of a whole lot of viruses, and with damage this severe, there was no way to tell. That thought had given Mac pause, and made him wonder if PC was really a lot braver than he'd ever given him credit for, just for risking that on a daily basis.

Then he wondered if, when PC woke up, he'd have that same courage. Or the same laugh. Or the same surprising, wonderful affection for Mac. How much of that had been pre-installed?

(He was betting the affection part wasn't. Recent compatibility aside, their families were practically Montagues and Capulets.)

Okay. So…okay. The OS was all in place. He'd been informed that he'd probably have to talk PC through a wizard or two to get him back up to speed – reintroduce him to any networks he used, update his clock, little procedural things like that. Once he was going, Mac could load the saved data from the disc, and just see how that went.

Out of curiosity, he peeked at the disc's contents, but damned if he could make heads or tails of it. It really had been a random sampling – there were a few things he recognized, a spreadsheet here or a movie file (that was a little surprising) there, but most of the files had extensions he was pretty sure he couldn't do anything with unless he ran Parallels, and that seemed unnecessary. Whatever ".dll" meant, he trusted PC to know his way around it.

PC, who still sat there, head lolled forward now, waiting to be turned on. As desperately as he'd missed him, Mac was more than a little apprehensive. He, who had always been of the "get it over with, rip the bandaid off all once" school of thought, was reluctant, because he knew this was going to hurt. No matter how much of PC had been saved (4.7 gigs, apparently), a great deal of him was lost, something Mac had never really prepared himself for. Turning him on would mean finding out exactly how much 'a great deal' was, and that scared him.

But he was going to have to take that step eventually. And for better or worse, he just wanted to hear PC's voice again.

He took a deep breath, reached over for PC's Power button, and gently pressed it.

The response was immediate. His eyes flickered open, then closed again, and there was that familiar whirring he'd been missing from the moment Geek #1 had done his 'hard reboot'. PC buzzed and hummed and clicked, the way he always did when he was just waking up or coming back from a crash, and Mac was utterly silent all the while. He watched the Vista loading screen appear – something he realized he'd never seen, up till then – and watched the progress bar move, creeping its way towards completion.

And there it was, awareness, returning little by little to PC's expression. He paused, and blinked, and blinked again, processors humming in what sounded like a stretch as he checked his clock, then took in a glance around him.

Then he saw Mac. For a long moment, he just stared, and Mac stared back. Then he smiled, the optimistically naïve smile of one with all the best intentions but absolutely no idea what he was doing, and that made Mac ache even before he spoke up.

"Hi," he said, pleasantly and simply and with no sign of recognition at all. "I'm a PC."

Mac swallowed hard, and had to look away for a long moment before he felt composed enough to nod and answer, fighting all the while the feeling that someone had replaced all his circuits with lead.

"Yeah, I know," he answered quietly. "I'm a Mac."

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

System Restore

By caffeine.bloodstream

5.4.2007

Disclaimer: The only Mac I own is the one on my desk. Also, this is going to make very little sense if you haven't seen the commercials. Apple dot com slash getamac slash ads.

This disclaimer applies doubly to this chapter, which makes reference to one or two of said ads.

Note: Haha, oh wow. This was a quick update, for once.

* * *

5 

"_Hi," he said, pleasantly and simply and with no sign of recognition at all. "I'm a PC."_

_Mac swallowed hard, and had to look away for a long moment before he felt composed enough to nod and answer, fighting all the while the feeling that someone had replaced all his circuits with lead._

"_Yeah, I know," he answered quietly. "I'm a Mac."_

* * *

"A Mac?" PC echoed curiously, looking him over.

"Yeah. Mac---Macintosh. You know?"

"Of course I know," he answered, two fingers pressed thoughtfully to his lower lip. "I just thought you guys were more…shiny. And bright-colored."

Mac looked over his own exterior, which as usual leaned less towards shiny and bright than towards…well, blue. "Huh? Oh – no. Those are iMacs. They're…like…my older cousins."

"Ah." He paused then, as if not sure how to say this tactfully, then seemed to shrug off the idea of tact and just went for it. "I was also under the impression that you spoke a different language."

Mac couldn't help but be a little surprised that a fresh install of Vista came pre-loaded with such old-fashioned ideas, and wondered if, as conspiracy-theory-ish as it sounded, that had been done intentionally. His side had the smaller marketshare, which meant they'd been the ones to carefully adapt themselves to getting along with PCs; for the most part, there hadn't been a lot of reciprocity. But he'd never blamed PC for that, and he wasn't about to start then. "No, we actually…Macs and PCs pretty much get along these days." That was a very optimistic view of the situation, but as long as PC was starting from a relatively blank slate, what was the harm in starting things off decently?

PC nodded again. Then hesitated. "Really?"

"Really," Mac promised.

They sat in silence a moment, Mac trying hard not to show that this hurt while PC thoughtfully surveyed his surroundings.

"Ah…where—" he started, brows furrowing slightly.

"My place," Mac filled in, and PC glanced over, a brow raised, plainly asking 'why?' Mac took a deep breath. He hardly wanted to think about the events of the past day or two, let alone recount them, but PC had to be confused. That was always a little frightening.

"You just went through a system restore," he explained, raking a hand wearily back through his hair. PC blinked, then nodded.

"That explains it. Go on."

Mac didn't press to ask what it explained; he was tired and badly in need of a little time to himself, but he'd explain things to PC first. "Anyway, the tech guys that did it said you'd probably need a day or two to get back up to speed – not literal speed," he clarified, when PC looked ready to defend his processors. "Figuratively. You know, reconfigure your networks, get your preferences tweaked, that kind of stuff. Like after your upgrade---" The upgrade that PC didn't remember, he realized, and had to fight back a sudden ache in his CPU before he could speak again. "…so…I figured it'd be good if you stayed here till things were back to normal. Just in case."

All the while, PC was eyeing him curiously, brows furrowed, and when Mac fell quiet, he finally spoke up.

"Do we…work together?"

"Why?" asked Mac, briefly hopeful. "Do you remember me?" It didn't seem possible, but who was he to say?

PC shook his head, though. "I'm just wondering why I'm here. If I had my system restored, I'd expect to be---wait. Why –was- it restored?" he asked, puzzled.

Mac sighed. So much for that. "You had a virus. Bad one. It pretty much tanked your RAM." Immediately PC's expression changed, brows lifting, and he scooted back a little on the couch.

"Oh---I assume the restore got rid of it, but just in case there's any left, you probably shouldn't be so close."

That comment, and the déjà vu that went with it, earned a slightly bittersweet smile from Mac. They'd had this conversation enough times before, but now all that was gone. He had to start over.

"It's cool. I don't get viruses."

PC eyed him skeptically. "_Everyone_ gets viruses."

"No, seriously," he assured him. "I'll be fine. Trust me." He still looked a little disbelieving, but apparently accepted Mac's promise and relaxed some.

Mac realized then that he was still holding the disc he'd been sent home with, and paused briefly before handing it over to PC. "Here. It's everything they were able to get off your hard drive before the restore."

PC took it and blinked, surprised. "Just one disc?"

Mac still didn't want to think about that, even if it very clearly wasn't going away. "Yeah."

For a moment PC just stared at the disc, seeming lost in thought, then he shrugged and started exploring the contents. Mac, meanwhile, really needed to breathe. And vent. And just generally have a little space. PC was out of immediate danger now; the time for worrying had passed. The next step felt more like…mourning, really. And Mac needed it.

"Okay, well, you get all that stuff installed or reorganized or whatever," he declared, clapping PC amiably on the shoulder and getting to his feet. "I'm gonna go out for a little. Uh – help yourself to anything. Mi casa et cetera." _As usual_, he almost added, but stopped himself, because that phrase had lost its meaning. PC nodded, already busily setting up subfolders for what had been saved, and Mac grabbed his hoodie from the hook beside the door before letting himself out.

Jogging was the favored exercise-slash-mode-of-transport for Mac's generation. Right up there with yoga (which was, admittedly, less useful for the transportation part). But he often used it as catharsis, too. Where some sulked, or consoled themselves with download after useless download, Mac put on his headphones and cranked it up and just ran. The sun had already gone down, but early summer brought warm nights; pretty soon, very late and very early would be the only reasonable times to do this, as midday just got too hot. He and PC were both vulnerable come July or so, and he could remember the past summer, days spent lounging around in as little clothing as possible, straining their fans and just being lazy for a little while---

Mac stopped, leaning against the streetlight he'd ended up beneath, and closed his eyes with a choked groan. It wasn't _fair_. PC didn't remember anything, but Mac still did. It was still way too easy to recall how one day the air conditioning had gone out, and they'd broken out the ice cubes in an attempt to keep cool, and one thing leading to another, and PC's laugh and the way he squirmed and such soft skin---

He took a deep breath.

They could have it again, he tried to assure himself. They'd overcome every compatibility issue that'd stood in their way one time; who said they couldn't do it again? There'd probably be some of the same fights as the first time around, and he had a distinct feeling they'd end up back in counseling for one thing or another, but they could pull it off. Till then, he'd have to learn patience, and not to be overwhelmed by things that only existed in his memory now. First and foremost, he needed to get PC back on his feet. He could worry about them, as a Them, later.

Switching the track to something energetic and upbeat, he turned around and started back for home.

When he got there, PC sat on the couch, absently nudging his folders around, the disc ostensibly finished with and sitting on the coffee table.

"Hey," he called as he let himself in, hanging his sweatshirt back up. PC looked up.

"Oh, hi. Did you do whatever it was you needed to?"

Mac paused, then nodded, and made his way over to sit next to him. "Yeah. How's it going? Everything back in its place?"

"More or less," PC answered, peering at the neatly-organized files he'd sorted. "I have a lot of spreadsheets."

That made Mac laugh, for the first time in days, simply because it was familiar and right then, familiar was very good. Not all of PC had been lost. A lot, but not all. PC, on the other hand, seemed to take this laughter as an insult, and came somewhat indignantly to the defense of his work.

"They're very practical, you know."

Mac tried to restrain himself to a grin. "Yeah."

"And expressive."

It was the Pie Chart conversation all over again, and Mac couldn't help it; he laughed once more, out of sheer exhausted relief. This was definitely still his PC, in spite of it all.

"I bet. You should show me some time."

"Oh, certainly." Then he blinked, eyeing Mac disbelievingly. "They're in Excel format, you realize…"

"I figured. What else makes spreadsheets?"

"_Microsoft_ Excel," he said, as if to clarify, and all the while looking at Mac like he was a little slow on the uptake. Mac just chuckled.

"You know what, we can discuss the finer points of cross-platform compatibility in the morning. It's gotten kinda late. I mean, I doubt they'll expect you in at the office or anything, but I know how you are with the…early-to-rise thing." He was relieved when PC didn't protest that he really ought to go to work; apparently even he could appreciate the value of a well-earned sick day now and then.

Mac was about to show PC where the bedroom was, by way of leading him there, when he realized the flaw in this plan. If he couldn't even remember the conversations they'd had, then he _definitely_ wouldn't remember the networking, and would probably be a little sketched out if Mac just crawled into bed with him, even with the purest of intentions. Mac didn't blame him. It'd taken a lot of working up and a long while of on-and-off friendship to get PC to that point the first time around.

"Uh…you _could_ go home, but since you'd just be coming back tomorrow…I'll take the couch, okay? The bedroom's right down that hall."

PC blinked at this arrangement, brows furrowing briefly. "I don't want to put you out."

"Nah, it's cool," Mac answered with a dismissive little wave. "This couch is awesome."

"It is nice," PC conceded, running a finger over the armrest. "Very, um…Smooth. And white."

Mac smiled. "Smooth and white is kinda my thing." Apparently PC had noticed some of the other décor of the place, because he smiled back, understanding.

And so they ended up for the night, PC in Mac's bed, Mac sprawled across the couch.

If he had any dreams that night, he didn't remember them.


End file.
